


Trust Exercise

by inkvoices



Category: Captain Marvel (2019), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Goose is an excellent judge of character, Nick Fury cat dad, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-11-16 06:15:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18088979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkvoices/pseuds/inkvoices
Summary: Five times (of many) that Fury trusts Goose to show him when someone is an ally (or not).***SPOILERS FOR CAPTAIN MARVEL***





	Trust Exercise

**Author's Note:**

> With thanks to CloudAtlas for beta reading :)

1.

“Who’s the cutest kitty in the universe, huh? Is it you? Oh yes it is.”

Fury is fussing over the ginger furball that’s parked herself on top of his keyboard and refused to move for the last five minutes when Coulson walks in.

Coulson’s only reaction is a small smile as he places the file he’s carrying on top of the pile already in Fury’s in-tray. Somehow Coulson’s smiles are always so damn _polite_ , not condescending or amused or anything else that anyone could possibly take offence at, so Fury lets him get away with it. The man’ll go far with a cultivated bland expression like that.

Goose doesn’t react to Coulson being in close proximity at all. Fury already trusts the rookie, but it’s good to know Goose agrees.

“I was just going to head out for some lunch, sir,” Coulson tells him. “Would you like me to get you something?”

Fury looks back down at his occupied keyboard.

Goose closes her eyes and, for all intents and purposes, appears to settle in for a nap.

“No, that’s alright. I’ll come with you.”

He pushes back his chair and turns to grab his jacket.

“Good kitty,” he hears Coulson say quietly behind him. Coulson gets a smug rumble in response.

 

2.

A week after his most recent promotion Fury is having a late night letting-off-some-steam session in the firing range. He empties his last clips and turns around to find Alexander Pierce, the giver of said promotion, watching him with his hands tucked in the pockets of his suit trousers and a company smile on his face.

It’s usually quiet in the range at this time of night. He hadn’t expected anyone else to join him and certainly not Pierce, who’d had another several meetings to go long after Fury himself was done with the Bogata debrief.

He removes the empty clip from his gun, then the regulatory ear and eye protection.

“Sir.” 

“Nick,” Pierce says, tilting his head in acknowledgement, all buddy-buddy. 

Fury gets it - he saved Pierce’s daughter in Bogata, along with a bunch of political officers and essentially Pierce’s bacon - but Pierce is still his superior officer and the one who gave an order dumb enough that Fury refused to follow it. He has no interest in building anything between them that isn’t work related.

“Something I can do for you, sir?”

“No, no, just giving myself a little tour of the Triskelion. Refreshing my memory.” He smiles again. “It’s been a while since I was last here.”

Goose choses that moment to saunter over from her favourite observation post - namely near the weapons locker where the Agents on duty are prone to giving her treats. She flicks her tail up in dismissal of Pierce as she passes him, showing him her butt.

It’s not full on, tentacle appearance, swallowing the enemy disapproval, but...

“You have a cat?” Pierce says, eyebrows raised as Goose winds around Fury’s ankles. “How very James Bond.”

“Not a white one, sir.” He holds up the protective gear. “I’m done for tonight, but there’s a new coffee machine in the third floor rec room, if your tour takes you in that direction.”

“Thank you,” Pierce says, attention diverted from the flerken. “I’ll bear that in mind.”

 

3.

“That cat,” Fury says, calmly and completely straight-faced, “is actually a highly dangerous alien species known as a flerken who once helped to save the world from a bunch of alien bastards called the Kree who were trying to wipe out an entire species of shapeshifting aliens called Skrulls. She’s highly intelligent and possibly capable of dimensional travel, or at least appearing seemingly from nowhere. She contains a multitude of tentacles. She once swallowed a powerful alien energy source and then coughed it up on my desk.”

Goose lets out a pleased mrwp at the praise and headbutts the back of Maria Hill’s calf. 

Hill, standing at ease in the middle of Fury’s office with her eyes pinned to the wall behind his head, doesn’t flinch. It’s a good sign in a potential new Deputy Director.

Goose purrs her approval and spits up two staplers between Hill’s feet.

“Thank you,” Hill says politely after glancing down, “it’s always hard to find one of those.”

Definitely a keeper.

 

4.

Fury watches through the one-way glass as Goose hops up on the metal table to get a proper look at the Black Widow before sauntering over and pouring herself into the woman’s lap. The Widow stares at the flerken for a good minute, like she’s waiting for it to explode (which Fury completely understands) and like she doesn’t really care if it does (which is sad to see, even on the face of a highly skilled assassin with who knows how many kills to her name).

Eventually the Widow gathers up the slack from where her handcuffs are chained to the table so that she can gently, with the pads of two fingers, stroke the fur on Goose’s head between her ears. Goose purrs loudly and shamelessly rubs her head along the underside of the Widow’s arm and then all over her chest. _Snuggling._

The corner of the Widow’s mouth curls up, just the tiniest bit.

Fine, Fury will accept that the Black Widow isn’t entirely evil. On the other hand, he can’t say _for certain_ how Goose got into the interview room with a woman who, of anyone, might just be able to murder a flerken, but he has his suspicions.

“Look, I’ve seen you use your cat as some measure of trust, sir, and - ”

“Barton,” Fury says flatly, “did you, by any chance, put my cat in the same room as the Black Widow?”

 

5.

But long before any of those events, years before even, in the first crappy but private office Nicholas Joseph Fury had earned at SHIELD a blue glowing cube was deposited on his desk in a puddle of cat - well, flerken - vomit.

“Really?” Fury asks the flerken sitting in her cat basket licking herself clean. “This is my problem now, is it? You’re okay with that? Because the last time we talked about this you blinded me in one eye.”

Goose flicks her tail once, then turns around and curls up for a nap.

“Well, alright then.” Fury touches the corner of his new eyepatch. “If you’re sure.”


End file.
